


Seven Nights

by Simplycassiopeia



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Betrayal, Death, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 20:21:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18785521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simplycassiopeia/pseuds/Simplycassiopeia
Summary: It took seven nights to make and break Huang Renjun.





	Seven Nights

~  
I met him in primary school. He said I was a cry baby. He had power he didn’t know he had and pushed me down on the playscape. There was so much blood on my knee, so much blood in fact other kids were starting to stare. It was either the blood or the loud screams I was letting out, I wasn’t sure. He stayed right beside me as the nurses poked and observed my skin, cleaned up the blood, and bandaged the wound. He was right about me being a cry baby, but I wasn’t going to admit it.

Then, middle school came. When I saw him again he was wearing some sweater that his mother forced him to wear. I thought it looked cute, but I told him it looked dorky. The next day, he wore it into the school building but shoved it into his backpack as soon as he was out of his mother’s sight. I asked him where his dorky sweater went; he said he lost it.  
I missed that dorky shirt. 

He liked a lot of dorky things I came to realize. He was also really smart. We were paired together for a science project and he took the lead. It’s not that I didn’t know much about science, I did, but I allowed him to tell me everything he knew about the mitochondria. He was beginning to act very cute. That’s when we started spending all of our days together. We ate lunch together, pretended to do our homework together, and spent late nights online messaging each other. 

After the cringy years of middle school, high school came. He was still cute, but things were starting to change. Things like him. His legs started to grow and his voice got deeper, but he still had that smile that made his eyes form little crescents. Things changed again though, he got busier. It was high school. With exams coming up and expectations to be met, I got busy too.  
We began to see less and less of each other, he had his life to live and I had mine. I started to miss him. One day we hadn’t spoken in an entire semester. I had thought he had forgotten about me or those days we shared in the past. During a basketball game my friends dragged me to, there he was, sitting on the bleachers next to some guy I’ve never seen before. I didn’t know who he was. They were holding hands. I didn’t understand until the unknown man kissed my friend and left. That was his boyfriend. 

I guess it made sense. When someone enters your life someone else has to leave to make room. I was that someone else and that tall brunette bouncing down the bleachers was that someone. I wasn’t mad, was what I told my friend when I had to leave the game early. I’m not jealous, was what I told myself as I avoided looking to them whenever I saw them kissing. He had moved on, was what I constantly reassured myself every night before I felt the tears come. I was a total cry baby. I still wasn’t going to tell him.

I didn’t want to think about him or his new life. I had a new life of my own to begin to create. I had one friend who I tried to spend my time with whenever the depression decided it wasn’t going to mess with me. He was going to replace that dork’s spot. 

I thought I had eradicated that dork from my life until I ended up having a class with the brunette. I’m sure he didn’t know who I was, but I knew who he was. He took my spot, but I didn’t care. Our teacher paired us together to work on a project I didn’t even want to do. I asked for another partner but he said no.

He invited me to his house to do the project. I didn’t want to go, but I ended up doing so. He lived in a big house so I knew he had a lot of money. There wasn’t even a single stain on his uniform. He led me up the stairs in his perfect little house to show me his perfect little room. Everything was neatly arranged with pictures of him, his family…

…and his boyfriend.

He told me his name, but I already knew what it was. It was the same person my mother constantly asked about and I would always give her the same lie. 

He talked about his boyfriend a little more but all I wanted to do was finish this project. Unfortunately for me, the project took several days, meaning I had to come over to his place several more times.  
On the final night, we finished the project a lot later than I had expected. So late in fact the subway had stopped running. Even more late that it was completely black outside and it was pouring down rain. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky when he led me into his place. 

I had just wanted to leave, but he insisted that he tagged along. This guy was hard to say no, unlike me. Maybe that was why I was so easy to replace. He walked me home in the darkness of the streets, holding an umbrella over my head as he spoke about something I tried to tune out. 

My first night was a weird night.

I was young at that time, so I didn’t know how unsafe it was to walk across town in the darkness while it was raining. It wasn’t a smart idea, but I was thankful that I had company that today. That was the day I got attacked. That was the day we got attacked. That was also the day I fell for a man I wasn’t supposed to. 

The brunette and the dork didn’t know how I felt. They must never know, but my crush would always flag me down and wave to me whenever he saw me in the hallway. The dork wasn’t the happiest to see me. The look in his eyes probably gave it away, but I was too much of a coward to look. 

I turned into a third wheel, suppressing my feelings as that hyperactive brunette continued to speak as I fell harder. This feeling continued until that special night: our Senior Party, also known as my second night.

Those two had been dating for 3 years now and I was still their third wheel. I had gotten used to it. On the night of our senior party, they expected me to come even though it was a thing for couples. I was alone and they knew I was. I was upset that they asked me to go, but the brunette insisted. My night with the hyperactive brunette was that rainy night, but my night with that dork happened on the night of our senior party. 

The hyperactive brunette had to cancel last minute because of the flu. I wasn’t going to go because the social interaction didn’t seem that fun, but I found myself with the dork in the middle of the dance floor with his arms around my waist. It was weird because he had a boyfriend, but I fell anyway. What made it even weirder was that he kissed me. I pushed him away and ran. My good heart wouldn’t let me stay and do something so wrong.

I’ve always hated my heart. To this very day it kept me from doing what others would say is, “The smart thing.” I always think back to those two nights because they have always influenced every decision I’ve made since then. The kiss from the dork was my first kiss. Your first kiss is supposed to be memorable, but after that first kiss I cried. I cried for weeks and ignored every single ring from my phone because I knew it was him. All of us were planning to go to the same college. Time to change that too. 

You can only avoid something for so long. That was until both of them showed up to my house. I wanted to close the door and then return to my bed to cry that day, but I’m happy I didn’t. That was my third night.

I had never heard of polyamory before and finding myself in the middle of that wasn’t something I expected in my future. Every time I opened my mouth to mention it, it was followed by an explanation. It was nice though. There was always someone to answer my question, and there was always someone there to hold me. What I liked the most was that they justified my feelings when my brain always told me that they weren’t right. When the depression came back, they helped me fight back. I wasn’t as powerless as I always thought I was. 

My fourth night was my favorite: our wedding night. It was a big wedding because the three of us all had a lot of people important to us, and our brunette thought that inviting everyone under the sun would make the wedding more memorable. I didn’t care. I was happy. Our dork didn’t do much of the wedding planning because me and our brunette had enough arguments to do it ourselves and he didn’t want to get in the middle. Looking back, he had made a smart decision. He was always so smart. When we could not decide whether to have red or white roses, he ordered both. It was our brunette’s idea to get a third color of the two combined: pink. 

During that special night, our dork bought back three roses from the wedding. One of each color. The brunette took the red, the dork took the pink, and I was left with the white. It was supposed to be that way. I didn’t realize it then, but they weren’t just pretty roses. We all played with our flowers and spoke of things in our future that didn’t happen. 

Our brunette had always been passionate and aggressive. As he played with the petals of his red rose, he said that he wanted to live a long life with us and how he would be there for us no matter the obstacles we come across. That didn’t happen. He has always been passionate about the things he loves, which is as dangerous as the red in his hands. 

Our dork chose the pink one, him almost putting it in his mouth when he tried to inhale its scent. Our dork has always been loving. He loved me when I thought he wanted nothing to do with me, he even loved me when he barely knew me. He loves and he loves hard. He told us that he loves us and he always will love us. Those words are what still keeps me going. 

I told them that I would love them unconditionally and help build a beautiful future no matter what it was. At that time I was positive that nothing would ever challenge those thoughts. I was innocent and positive. Ignorant and positive. 

We believed that for so long, so we started to build our future. Things started off great, we built a steady schedule and lived with that. We would work during the day and come home at night to each other. Someone had to stay home to take care of the house. That someone became me. I wasn’t upset, it was nice waiting for my loves to come home and present them with a meal. They always had beautiful stories to share. When it was my turn, I would share the stories from what happened at the super market or things I heard from the other homemakers in the neighborhood. I was truly happy. I didn’t go to school like they did and I didn’t work on my career. Being a homemaker was okay. 

We kept our colors even as years passed. The schedule changed some, but not too much. I thought things were the same, but I was wrong. Our dork began to act a little funny, but that’s what dorks do. They act funny. He misplaced his keys and he had the both of us searching the entire house for them. They were in the door. We had a good laugh before I sent him off to work. 

His keys turned into his cell phone. His cell phone turned his shoes. His shoes turned into his clothes. His clothes turned into his car and his car turned into our house. He came home really late one day. Our brunette got really angry while I was worried and blowing up his phone. When he eventually came home, he told us what caused such a late return and our brunette got even more upset. I didn’t understand why he got upset. He made a mistake. That mistake got him called the word “idiot”. It was a mean word. I had to be the peacemaker this time, but it was the idiot’s fault. It was the idiot’s fault for being such an idiot and he needs to fix himself. I still don’t believe that, even if those terrible words are continuously going through my brain. 

I didn’t want another fight and I didn’t want to worry again, so I put a map in his car so he wouldn’t forget, I placed his clothes and shoes out for him every morning, and I made sure he kept his car parked in the same place so he wouldn’t forget. 

It worked. So I thought everything was fine. 

Everything was not fine. 

I got a phone call from his doctor the same day that he went for a checkup. I answered the phone and they wanted to speak to me, not him. 

That was the day the diagnosis came. The doctor explained to me the symptoms that were red flags, what was going to happen, and what I needed to do to slow the progression. I don’t remember the details of the phone call except that one word. I googled it and read several articles on it instead of cooking dinner that night, our brunette coming in to get a bowl of cereal before leaving. He didn’t ask what I was reading, but our dork did. He also asked why I was crying. 

That was when the lies started. I told him that I was crying because I had forgot to make dinner and I had didn’t want to upset our husband because he had such a long day. He made dinner for us every night following that day, and soon it became a habit, until he forgot that too. I told our brunette about the diagnosis when I mustered up the courage a couple weeks later. All he did was nod. 

I always look back at our wedding as special night number four. We made a photo album of that day. I like to look back at it whenever I’m feeling nostalgic. I decided to spend the morning of that terrible day looking back at memories with our dork. It took him a few seconds after pointing at the picture to remember where it was taken and what happened. I learned to give him a few hints and he would eventually get it and we would move onto the next. He would smile that smile I fell in love with on special night number two.

In the back of the album we placed our roses from that night. They were dead of course, but our love kept them beautiful. Before I could point to them and give the hint, our brunette came home. He was angry. He used profanity and he began to shout at our dork. I didn’t understand why he was so angry, and neither did our dork. Those words “idiot” and “stupid” came back again. Once again, I played peacemaker and told our brunette to stop, but he continued. Our dork was sick. I had to remind him that, but he didn’t get it. 

Our trio turned into a duo on the fifth night. Our brunette packed up all of his things and left. 

My dork kept asking me why he left. I told him that he wanted something else. As the years passed, my answer to that question shifted. First, I said that he wanted something else. Then I said that he cheated on us with someone else in hopes that he would stop asking. Finally, I said that he was at work. He probably was at work somewhere. 

Our weekends of looking at our photo album ceased because they brought new questions. I had to find new things to do. I decided that we should have a date night on Saturdays. I looked forward to Saturdays ever since the date was officially put into our calendar. Every Saturday night the brunette was stuck at work so it had to just be the two of us. That was okay. 

We would go to a nice restaurant in the middle of our city dressed in our best outfits. He would always pull out my chair like I liked it, until he forgot to do it. That was when I pulled out his chair for him, he really liked it.

We would always scan the menu together to identify what we were going to get. Not only was he loving, but he was adventurous. When we were kids and we went to our favorite café, he was determined to order everything on the menu at least once. Since we go to this restaurant every Saturday, I thought we would pick up the routine, and at first he agreed. We had gotten to the 15th item, it was the 15th week of date night. When it was time to order, he stared at the menu for a while. I was ready to tell him which one we were ordering this time, but he could not read the menu. Even as I spoke to him and pointed out the words, he still could not see clearly. That was okay too. I was prepared to order for us anyway. 

On the 20th night, a month later, that was our last visit to the restaurant. He’s usually the calm and collected one, but not that night. He got really agitated. He said that there were too many people, and they were too loud, and he wanted to go home. He kept saying he wanted to go home. When I told him we were on a date, he yelled at me. That was the first time he yelled at me. But I love him unconditionally. So I packed up our food and took him home despite the stares. 

I started back our date nights the following week, but we just had them at home. He liked that. It wasn’t loud and he didn’t have to go through the stress of reading the menu and picking. I ordered things from the restaurant whenever I could so things could at least be a little similar. 

One day, I got a call from his work. He fell. I would have helped him back up, but they didn’t love him like I did. They let him go because getting the job done was much more important than us having a roof over our heads. When I first told him that he got fired, he took it really hard. My mistake, but I’ll learn. The next day, when he started to get ready for work, I told him he had the day off. He just so happened to have the day off for the rest of his life. 

We had a lot of money saved up, but someone still had to work. It was my turn. I hadn’t held a job in years, but I could find something. I decided to pick up a job teaching Chinese to the children at our neighborhood school. It was easy and it was enough money to keep us comfortable. On my first day on the job, I had to tell my dork that I had to go out while he stayed home for the day. I told him to relax because it was his day off. He didn’t relax. I was gone for two hours until he made that phone call. He wanted to know where I was, and he was panicking. He thought I abandoned him. My first day ended as quickly as it had begun. 

When I got home there were dishes pulled out of the cabinet and crumbled all over the kitchen floor. That was the last time I left him home alone. He was looking for me. My family and friends who didn’t understand called it dependence. I didn’t care what it was called. I loved him and he loved me too. 

The very next day, I decided to take him to work with me. I wrote him a note to tell him why he was here and that he needed to stay quiet so I could teach the children, but it didn’t work. There were so many factors I did not take into account, silly me. When he got upset because of all the noise the children were making, I had to take him out. I wanted him to yell at me instead of the children. They were just children. 

I couldn’t take him to work with me anymore. So, I did some research.There was a center across town for people with the same diagnosis as him. He was a lot younger compared to most of the others at the center, but they still accepted him. He did not like it at first. It was his vacation for working so hard at work, but that wasn’t good enough. I decided to tell him that he was going to work every day. This was his work. It was a long drive to get him to work but I made it twice a day for him 5 days out of the week. On the 6th day, we would have our date and on the 7th day, things get a little complicated. At first there were questions, but then they turned into the same few questions every other second. He had finally stopped asking about our brunette, but that saddening question was replaced with a bunch more that I answered every time. Sometimes the answers weren’t right, but that was okay. I answered and he was happy with the answer, even if it was nowhere near close to correct and he could do nothing with the information. He was going to ask it again in the next few minutes anyway.

He also liked a lot of snacks. I brought the snacks with him to the center and I also kept the snacks in the cabinet for him. While staring at the television, I knew what that familiar ruffle was coming from the kitchen, he was getting another snack.

What I learned that day was that he had a craving that he needed to satisfy. But if he forgot the day and the time, he would also forget that he ate. I witnessed him get sick that day from all of his favorite snacks. Too much of your favorite thing is never a good thing. That day I learned that I had to hide them. That began the trend of hiding. I turned over all of the pictures of the brunette so he wouldn’t ask, but I also did that for me. He forget because he could not see it, so I did the same with his snacks. I would surprise him with a few occasionally and he would eat all of it, but not too much.  
I love him unconditionally. 

I had to wake up early every morning to take him to work and then go to work myself, then afterward I go pick him up from work, and then we go home. I have to remind myself to play those games with him on the 7th day, but I’m so tired on days 1-5. The children are just as curious as he is. 

I liked the 4th day because after that was the 5th day and after that came day 6. This particular 4th day was normal until I went to pick him up from work and he was not there. They thought I had already picked him up. That was one of the first times I experienced fear. I searched for him the entire day. He wasn’t at the center, he wasn’t at home. He wasn’t at his old job.  
They had given me the white rose because I was the pure and innocent one. I was the one who always had faith in humanity. Silly me. He called me that night, asking me where I was; as if I had not spent that entire day in search for him, as if I wasn’t crying at the very moment because I thought I was never going to see my husband again. But he called, casually asking for me in a tone that radiated happiness, not fear. I couldn’t scare him. 

He thought I was the one who didn’t show up to our date with the brunette. He thought that I had forgotten. He thought that he was right where he was supposed to be with the brunette, a location that I was never told. For an entire week, no one told me anything.

That terrible week of solitude opened my eyes. It made me realize how much he needed me. It made me realize how passionate the brunette was, and it made me realize that I could never trust anyone, especially him. 

I saw the brunette the second to last time when he returned my dork. The questions, agitation, and the set schedules were too much for him to handle. I thought I was never going to see my love again, but after 7 days, he was back in my arms, ready for another snack. He didn’t know what happened, so my allergies had to be the cause of the tears in my eyes. It seemed that around those times, I had a lot of trouble with my allergies. 

The brunette didn’t miss our dork. He didn’t want to walk down memory lane, and that wasn’t a date they went on, but I was too naïve to realize it then. I realized everything we had was gone when I went to buy my dork’s favorite snack and all of my cards were declined. I realized I was trapped in this same cycle when breaking out of it was met with hostility from my sick lover. I realized no one was going to help us when all of our family members strangely had other plans when I asked for help, and I realized I was truly alone in this battle when all the bills came and my dork was looking for his snack. We didn’t have anymore. 

The brunette wouldn’t give it back either. The lawyers said that my dork signed all of the money over to him. But they didn’t understand that he wasn’t able to make such decisions by himself. No one understood.

I had to take him to work with me because the bills to take him to work were piling up. They loved him, but not enough to take care of him for free. Silly me. I had him help me in any way he could, even if it were little games that helped bring his memory back, but none of them worked. 

Days 1-7 slowly started to blend together. The date nights ceased to exist because we had to go to work, but I turned everything into a date. He liked that a lot. We worked hard every day and slept together in the same bed. I try to put him to bed first so I could do little things around the house, but one night he wasn’t ready for bed. It was probably because we had ran out of his sleeping medication. I was arranging our clothes for the next day and he watched me, memorizing the pattern of the first set of clothes. I pulled out all of his clothes next and he arranged them in the same way mine were. I was so proud of him. 

That night, we laid, neither of us intoxicated with pills that made our worries disappear. We just laid in each other’s presence and talked. We never had the chance to do that. We didn’t have much, but we had each other. We always had each other, even if the other didn’t realize it. Sometimes I wondered what was going on in his mind, but I knew that there was love everywhere. We couldn’t stay up too late for we had to go to work in the morning, and every breaking of the usual schedule was never met kindly, so we got ready for bed. 

He wore his usual silk pajamas and I decided to wear a loose-fitting shirt with sweats this time. It was comfortable for me, but I didn’t realize that it was unfamiliar. Unfamiliar isn’t a good thing. He didn’t recognize me when I joined him in bed. He asked me to leave because his husband wouldn’t approve. Little did he know that his husband with a broken heart was seated right next to him.  
He was familiar with the old me. His body was in the present, but his mind was in the past. When I get frustrated, I cutely pout, even when I’m about to cry. I’m a crybaby after all. He told me that years ago. Apparently, I was very cute to him because he gave me permission to join him in bed, but I had to leave before his husband came home. I agreed. 

We were stuck in this vicious repetitive cycle and I was close to breaking. Time seemed to just slow down and things were just getting worse. 

He was getting worse. 

But I held on.

He began to not move much and we didn’t talk like we used to. Sometimes I would spend all day talking to my dork while we were working, but he just remained still and listened. I hoped he was listening.  
I’ve been called many names: stupid, persistent, naïve, blind, but never a quitter. I’ve never given up even as I stayed by his bedside as his grip only weakened. I never knew that I would eventually begin to miss those questions of his. I still answered the questions though, even before he asked them. 

That deafening silence that he created was replaced with solely my chatter now. Neither of our families had contacted us in years and even as anxiety plagued my being of what was to come, they remained as distant as before. 

I made him breakfast every morning and I fed it to him. He could no longer feed himself so I took the time to ensure he ate his food well and completely. It used to be his favorite. I couldn’t tell if he liked it or not, but he used to. Memories are what I hold onto. 

Whether or not I liked it, the sixth night got its title from the memories it implanted in me, likewise to the fifth night. I prepared breakfast like every other day, I had a simple breakfast of rice and vegetables. The vegetables weren’t the freshest because of the market we were reduced to shopping at, but it was a meal that we ate with pleasure. I prepared it and with water and brought it to my dork’s bed. Like every other day, I would give him a gentle nudge and help him sit up so we could begin our day with our meal, me beginning to answer his unasked questions. I would usually start with the day of the week and the date and go on from there. 

I greeted him with a good morning on day number six, told him that it was a beautiful Tuesday in October and it was time to get up to eat breakfast. I told him that his food was going to get cold if he didn’t get up to eat it, and if he didn’t eat he was going to be hungry. 

He didn’t answer me that day

No hand squeeze, no blink, no gaze. 

The sixth night was when I lost my dork. 

I was naïve so I continued to ask him to wake up even when I got a phone call from work asking where I was. I found a voice somewhere in my throat to say that I was on my way, but I never arrived. I spent hours asking for him to wake up. The sun rose up and fell that day, night fall arriving as his food sat at his side, cold by now. I was a crybaby but I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t cry even as the paramedics came that night and took him away in a bag that didn’t match his beautiful pink color. I couldn’t cry as I made the plans for his funeral. Nor could I cry when I knew that I would be the only one on the guest list celebrating his life. 

Sure enough, on the day of his committal, I was the only one there to say how much I love him to an empty room. It was just like breakfast time, expect there was no food, no eye contact, and no light hand squeezes. 

I couldn’t even cry as they took the remains of our money to bury him in the beautiful land I personally selected, beautiful pink roses being placed upon his plot in front of his tombstone I couldn’t walk away from. I remained even as the sun disappeared, rain set in, and the workers convinced me to go home. I still couldn’t cry as I stared at the tombstone that I was quite familiar with by now. I would lay next to it in silence for what felt like years, replaying the memories I convinced myself I could return to in my head. 

The seventh night occurred that day. It was also the last time I saw the brunette. I didn’t know how long he had been standing there, but when the rain drops stopped falling directly on top of me, I could see that I was being watched by a dark gaze, a dark aura, and a dark umbrella. 

He said he was sorry.

I accepted his apology because I only know how to love. 

I’m still in love with him.

In his arms, I was finally able to cry and let out all the emotions I had held inside for so long. I was tired of being strong and I was tired of carrying this weight on my shoulders. He let me cry for a long time in his arms. 

He took me back to my home that night. Bought me a nice dinner and he helped me laugh my tears away with the good memories of our past. It was the first time in a long time I had a nice meal. I told him I couldn’t eat, but he said I proved myself wrong. I laughed again. And it was a genuine laugh.  
After we cried away our pain and laughed away the memories seeing each other brought us, he made love to me in the same bed I lost our dork only a week ago. I could still smell his beautiful scent in the sheets. I felt truly at home. The brunette kissed my tears away as he kept his slow pace he knew I loved, his strong hands caresses every bit of my body so not a section of skin was left untouched. I didn’t know that I needed the passion, nor did I know that I needed to be taken care of. He took care of me that night. He held me protectively as his lips explored my skin dampened by our night of love making. I didn’t want it to end. Unfortunately, all beauty has its end. 

He left before I could wake up the next morning. 

He was gone with everything I thought I had. 

My livelihood, my willingness to trust, and my hope for anything left when he did. He robbed me of everything I had physically and emotionally.

He left me with nothing. That was okay though. 

He couldn’t take away my ability to love.


End file.
